26 August 2012

An August weekend

We put our bikes on the car on Saturday, and zoomed through Joensuu to Noljakka. Here's Orb and M racing along the ski trail...

...towards the lake, and our favourite view.

M's new Islabike (a Beinn 20) is fantastic - the gears mean we can finally all ride at a reasonable speed, and go up and down (small) hills without lots of whinging. Result!

Sunday involved skating school in the morning for M, while I revisted some knitting I'd started in March and then got sidetracked from. I have one and a half legwarmers, which will apparently be perfect for skating practice once I've finished the other half...

It was such a beautiful sunny day that we drove to Koli. We climbed (and climbed and climbed) every large rock we could see, and trekked along the trail from Ukko-Koli. It was beautiful - the first time we'd seen all the views with greenery (our previous trips were in October, March and April, so it looked a bit different!).

But two hours of trekking about makes a small family very hungry, so we decamped to the service station for buns and coffee. I love the service station at Ahmovaara. It's a souvenir shop, supermarket, burger joint, cafe, bar, posti, otto machine, petrol station and kids playground all rolled into one. With an appropriately diverse range of customers...